Sunday, January 13, 2008


MISTER PIP - Lloyd Jones - Penguin

I am grateful to US-based New Zealand writer Paula Morris, (Trendy but Casual), for the following message received today (Sunday) shortly after we arrived home from New York. Thanks Paula.

Hi Graham,

I'm not sure if you saw this in the current issue (Jan/Feb 08) of The
Atlantic: it's not available on their web site, I think.

It's in the Cover to Cover section of brief reviews:

Mister Pip
By Lloyd Jones

This charming short novel, which won the 2007 Commonwealth Writers' Prize,
was favored to win the Man Booker Prize, but lost out to Anne Enright's The
Gathering. A pity, since it's much more original, making some important
points about the universality of archetypes and even of eccentricities.
Set
on a Pacific island devastated by war, it describes a white teacher's
efforts to fascinate his native pupils with the temporally and
geographically far-off world of Dickens's Great Expectations. Not just a
delightful read, Mister Pip shows the cut and thrust of true
multiculturalism.

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